snack packs and midnight musings

I've often heard that your senses are very closely tied with memory. It makes sense, though-- how many of us have caught a hint of cologne and thought of an ex (or current)? Walked into Mom's house on Thanksgiving and remembered so many other years? Heard a song and thought of the first time you heard it play?

Well at any rate, it happened to me tonight, and the place it took me was, well, a little less pleasant than turkey and cranberry sauce. I opened a chocolate pudding cup and scooped a spoonful. The minute it hit my tongue, I was taken back to being 14 and hospitalized for anorexia. I had been admitted a few days before, tipping the scales at 82 pounds, so weak and lethargic I couldn't even lift myself off of the floor where I was laying to watch TV. I remember the terror on my mom's face when she realized that I wasn't being defiant when she told me to get up, I literally couldn't do it.

I've worried about my weight for as long as I can remember. My mom tells a story that when I was 3 years old, I looked up at her and asked, "Mommy, am I fat?" Who knows where I heard that. I got in trouble once when I was little, for calling my preschool teacher fat, too. Once I started taking ballet and getting really serious about it, I went to a summer-long intensive training camp, and was told (at age 13) that I should watch what I was eating, or my partner would continue to drop me. I was 5'7" and very thin. Looking back now, I realize that the fault was with my dance teacher-- for, rather than partnering me with an older boy who could match me for height and therefore support my body during lifts better, she put me with a boy my own age, who was a good few inches shorter than I.

I firmly recall that summer beginning my full-on obsession. We never had a scale in the house, so that really wasn't an option, but I started trying to "pinch" fat on my body, looking for things that were wrong. It really was a slow descent, because it took about a year before I was really in a physically dangerous place, but it seemed to be an eternity of counting how many Saltine crackers I ate a day, rationing out how much I could eat at dinner and "get away with," wearing bigger clothes so that people would stop commenting on how skinny I was (it only made me angry, because I never agreed).

Finally, though, I had been busted. It was a relief in some way, going through admissions. People realized, "Ashley has a Problem." But then came my wake-up call. There's nothing like being diagnosed with a problem with a capital "P" and tossed into a hospital, put on suicide watch for the first 48 hours (just in case), and locked up with people who had no idea what it was like to deal with your particular issue (I was placed in a general in-patient treatment center, where they not only had no specialty in dealing with eating disorders, they had never dealt with something like this before). Here I was, this half-starved little homeschooled girl who didn't even have cable TV, sitting next to a girl who'd done so much extacy that she had no more spinal fluid, another who had taken a box cutter to her wrists (and the police officer who tried to contain her), a boy who had "anger problems" (to understate things), another who had a sexual addiction, etc., etc. To say that I received a crash course in even more destructive behavior would be a gross understatement.

Anyway, back to the chocolate pudding. All the doctors knew to do for me was to "make me eat." They'd give me these frozen chocolate shakes between every meal, and I had to finish them (or slip them to someone else) before I could leave the table in the center of the day room. How utterly humiliating, if you can imagine, being surrounded by people while you face your worst enemies-- food, and yourself. I strongly considered bulimia during my stay, but I just couldn't figure out how to get myself to actually throw up instead of just gagging and crying (still can't, by the way, I tried once or twice during morning sickness). So I just went through the motions for 6 weeks until I was considered "cured" (and medicated into a zombie-like state). When I got home, I not only had an arsenal of new ways to destroy myself (rebellion, self-mutilation, and some serious anxiety issues), but I knew all new ways of hiding everything from watchful eyes.

Eventually, I did hit a rock bottom on my own, seek better forms of help, and turn things around before I killed myself. I still struggle with my weight, and in times of severe stress, I have relapsed a time or two (okay, three, but who's counting). Who honestly knows if I will ever be totally "cured," but I know that I have reached a place now where I can be honest with myself and others when I'm struggling, encourage others when they start to veer towards dangerous waters that I have tread before, and, for the most part, I've stayed pretty level.

As a side note, I discovered while I was in basic training in 2007, that because of my love-hate affair with food and my body, I've permanently altered the composition of my bones. I was so malnourished for so long, that I now have a very low bone density and am highly prone to breaks and fractures-- with a very, very slow healing time (as evidenced by my medical discharge from the Army). It's a consequence that I will always have to bear, along with some complications I faced during my pregnancy that could have been avoided altogether.

All that from chocolate pudding. Who would have thought?